#inuit tattoo

[rosiesfables]

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of my top favourite comfort show. So I figured I’d try my hand at drawing them. 💨🌊🪨🔥

The north and south water tribes are based on Inuit culture so I thought it would be amazing to showcase their traditional tattoos. Designs/meanings vary from different communities of course, but typically chin/v forehead tattoos signify womenhood. So that’s what I’m going with 🤞🏼

[dimens1ons]

inuit wedding day

[uwmspeccoll]

The author, Angela Hovak Johnston.

Johnston and Marjorie Tungwenuk Tahbone, traditional tattoo artist.

Catherine Niptanatiak: "I designed my own, something that represents me and who I am, something that I would be proud to wear and show off, and something that would make me feel confident and beautiful. . . . I have daughters and I would like to teach them what I know. I would like for them to want to practice our traditions and keep our culture alive."

Cecile Nelvana Lyall: "On my hand tattoos, from the top down, the triangles represent the mountains. . . . The Ys are the tools used in seal hunting. . . . The dots are my ancestors. . . . I am so excited to be able to truly call myself and Inuk woman."

Colleen Nivingalok: "The tattoos on my face represent my family and me. The lines on my chin are my four children -- my two older boys on the outside protecting my daughters. The lines on my cheeks represent the two boys and the two girls on either side. The one on my forehead represents their father and me. Together, we live for our children."

Doreen Ayalikyoak Evyagotailak: "I have thought about getting traditional tattoos since I was a teenager. . . . When I asked the elders if I could have my own meaning for my tattoos, they said it wouldn't matter. My tattoos symbolize my kids."

Mary Angele Takletok: "I always wanted traditional tattoos like the women in the old days. I wanted them on my wrists and my fingers so I could show I'm Inuk."

Melissa MacDonald Hinanik: "As a part of celebrating my heritage and revitalizing important traditional customs that form my identity, I believe I have earned my tattoos. I am a beautiful, strong young woman. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a friend, and an active community member. I reclaim the traditional customs as mine, I re-own them as a part of who I am."

Star Westwood: "We still have some of our culture, but some things are slowly dying. Having tattoos helps us keep our culture alive. . . . . My tattoos represent my dad and my dad's dad. The ones closest to my wrists represent my sisters."

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National Tattoo Day

July 17 is National Tattoo Day. To celebrate, we present some images from Reawakening Our Ancestors' Lines: Revitalizing Inuit Traditional Tattooing, compiled by Angela Hovak Johnston, co-founder with Marjorie Tahbone of the Inuit Tattoo Revitalization Project, with photographs by Inuit photographer Cora DeVos, and published in Iqaluit, Nunavut by Inhabit Media Inc. in 2017.

For thousands of years, Inuit have practiced the traditional art of tattooing. Created the ancient way, with bone needles and caribou sinew soaked in seal oil, sod, or soot, these tattoos were an important tradition for many Inuit women, symbols etched on their skin that connected them to their families and communities. But with the rise of missionaries and residential schools in the North, the tradition of tattooing was almost lost. In 2005, when Angela Hovak Johnston heard that the last Inuk woman tattooed in the old way had died, she set out to tattoo herself in tribute to this ancient custom and learn how to tattoo others. What was at first a personal quest became a project to bring the art of traditional tattooing back to Inuit women across Nunavut.

Collected in this book are photos and stories from more than two dozen women who participated in Johnston's project. Together, these women have united to bring to life an ancient tradition, reawakening their ancestors' lines and sharing this knowledge with future generations. Hovak Johnston writes: "Never again will these Inuit traditions be close to extinction, or only a part of history you read about in books. This is my mission."

Reawakening Our Ancestors' Lines forms part of our Indigenous America Literature Collection.

Angela Hovak Johnston (right) with her cousin Janelle Angulalik and her aunt Millie Navalik Angulalik.

View other posts from our Indigenous America Literature Collection.

[notdayle]

Katara having muktu (beluga whale)

[glowingcritter]

Scenes from Inuit life, Alaska

The World of the American Indian, National Geographic, 1974

[a-todd-illustration]

Inuit cultural inspiration. Tribal tattoos are fascinating and very cool!

[lucigra]

Don't mind me, I just gonna leave this here

[inflammatory]

Wtf even. Human AUing everybody. Guy. the snake from guys backstory. Indulgence

[saturnniidae]

Eret is trans btw

[artapothecarybya]

[imaginarianisms]

sansa obtains these traditional birthing tattoos on her thighs upon falling pregnant with her first child as queen of the north; it was believed to ease her pain during the process welcoming her first child into the world & to prepare the baby to enter the world in beauty & knowledge with the newborn baby beheld beauty in them, the first thing her baby girl catelyn would ever see.

[gwydionmisha]

Chin stripe tattoos are NOT Viking

[reasonsforhope]

“With funding support from the Anchorage Museum and Alaska Native Heritage Center, Nordlum created a program on Inuit tattoo traditions and techniques named Tupik Mi to provide instruction to a small group of Inuit artists including from Jacobsen, Scrivner and Dr. Kelliher. The event was held in 2015.

Nordlum said she hopes that participants would carry forward and rekindle Alaska Native tattoo traditions that were nearly lost: the program trained them to provide traditional markings and to find apprentices for making the work self-sustaining.

Public events included lectures and a tattoo demonstration to educate visitors about the Inuit traditional technique of needle-poking by hand. Project documentation online includes Tupik Mi: Inuit Traditional Markings on Facebook, two short films by Michael Conti and a public presentation at the Anchorage Museum.

Over years of work, Nordlum has experienced how Inuit tattooing is a way to heal from generations of colonization by supporting cultural reclamation and Indigenous pride.” -via Indian Country Today

[notdayle]

Can you imagine if Korra walked into screen looking like this? This started as a doodle and started experimenting rendering

[higherentity]

[mortispbf]